"Pour qui gardes-tu tes yeux Et ton sein délicieux Ta joue et ta bouche belle En veux-tu baiser Platon Là-bas après que Charon T'aura mise en sa nacelle?"
The work of Germain Pilon at the Louvre, and of the sculptor of the dead de Brézé in Rouen Cathedral, whether that were Pilon himself, or Jean Cousin, or Goujon, has none of the gentle regret that reverences what it has once loved in life. There is in it all the fierce desire for personified destruction, all the hideous mockery of the rich man levelled with the poorest in a common corruption, which inspired the "Danse Macabre"; but the sculptor's thought is expressed with the subtle handicraft of a supersensitive age, with a fury of achievement and a triumph over technical difficulties that is the very essence of the best French Renaissance. In the same spirit Ronsard continues his relentless comparison of the dead woman with the living mistress:--
"Ton teste n'aura plus de peau Ny ton visaige tant beau N'aura veines ny arteres Tu n'auras plus que des dents Telles qu'on les voit dedans Les testes des cimetères."
This complicated mental attitude had evidently not been reached when Rouland Leroux carved the great mausoleum for Cardinal d'Amboise, which is on the south side of this chapel, or if it had been attained by some men, neither Leroux himself nor Pierre Désaubeaulx his fellow-workman had been touched by it. The very inscription proclaims the exact reverse of that grisly triumph which is celebrated so clearly on the opposite tomb; for the virtues of Georges d'Amboise are said to be superior to death:--
"Pastor eram cleri populi pater aurea sese Lilia subdebant quercus et ipsa mihi Mortuus en jaceo morte extinguuntur honores _At virtus mortis nescia morte viret_."
[Illustration: TOMB OF THE TWO CARDINALS D'AMBOISE IN THE CHAPELLE DE LA SAINTE VIERGE IN ROUEN CATHEDRAL]
An optimism that may have been foreign to his age is appropriate to this sturdy and ambitious ecclesiastic, who did not forget to do so much material good for his town of Rouen, with waterworks, and even drainage, and fair new buildings spaciously designed; all this in spite of wider interests which did not stop at the tiara itself, of which all men said the great cardinal was worthy. Of the two statues that are now within the arched recess, the one on the right represents him, and it must have been an excellent likeness. It has been called a peasant face; and it is certainly no courtier who kneels there before the carving of his patron saint slaying the dragon. The square head, the deep brows, the heavy jaw and firm mouth, are not beautiful, but they are impressive, and they show a character as far removed from the peasant as it was from the voluptuary, as near akin to the administrator of Normandy as to the Cardinal of the Holy Church. I have little doubt that this was the handiwork of the Rouland Leroux who must have often seen him in the Cathedral, and who helped to build the great Palais de Justice, which was given to Rouen at his request.